PRESS RELEASE
Boreal Crisis Grows: 9 More Arrested for Defending Grassy Narrows Traditional Territory from Clear-cut Logging
For Immediate Release: July 27, 2006
Contact: David Sone, Rainforest Action Network, (647) 883-5983- in Kenora, ON Chrissy Swain, Grassy Narrows, (807) 468-6724- in Grassy Narrows, ON Brant Olson, (415) 596-6581, in Thunderbay, ON Brianna Cayo Cotter, (415) 305-1943
KENORA, ON- Last night, Ontario Provincial Police officers arrested Chrissy Swain, member of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, and 8 supporters on English River Road. The group had been blocking trucks hauling logs to Weyerhaeuser's TrusJoist mill in Kenora since Tuesday afternoon to demand a moratorium on clear cut logging within the community's Traditional Territory. The nine were charged with mischief and released early this morning on the condition that they leave Kenora within 24 hours.
The arrests marked the first time ever that a member of the First Nation community has been arrested for defending its Traditional Territory from logging.
"Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi are destroying our people by logging our Boreal Forest," said Chrissy Swain, a young Grassy Narrows mother from the blockade site. "We've been passive for too long while we've suffered from the impacts of industrial logging. Our people are sick and we can't afford to allow this anymore. We are standing up to protect our land and our children's future."
The English River blockade is the second protest by the Grassy Narrows community in as many weeks and the latest development in a decade long campaign to end logging without the native community's consent.
Last Thursday, July 13th, over 80 supporters blocked traffic on the Transcanada Highway. The following day, Ontario Provicial Police officers established checkpoints on Highway 671, arresting 9 allegedly involved in the protest. Supporters criticized the OPP for jailing and interrogating people of color including several First Nations individuals, while Caucasians among the arrestees were released with a citation. Hearings in the case will take place Sept 18th in Kenora.
"It is obscene that the Ontario government is arresting peaceful protestors and allowing Abitibi and Weyerhaeuser to continue destroying the land and way of life of the Grassy Narrows people," says David Sone, organizer with the Rainforest Action Network and one of the individuals arrested Wednesday night. "I now am part of a long and proud history of people who stood up for what was right and just during a time that government refused to respect human rights."
"The forest should be protected," said Steve Fobister, Councilor in charge of Forests Portfolio for the Grassy Narrows Council. "Whatever trees we have left should remain for our purposes and our survival as a people. For over a century we have shared the land, but Abitibi and Weyerhaeuser have abused our generosity for too long. The Provincial government must stop abusing our human rights by destroying the Boreal Forest that we depend on."
Grassy Narrows community members have filed official complaints, environmental assessment requests, lawsuits, and engaged in public protest and a blockade of a logging road on their territory – now in its fourth year. Logging companies Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi continue to use wood clearcut logged on Grassy Narrows' traditional territory while the McGuinty Provincial government fails to address longstanding Native land rights issues and a growing crisis of mismanagement in the Boreal forest – one of the earth's last intact original forest ecosystems.
Last month, the Superior Court of Ontario ordered the province to pay legal costs associated with a lawsuit challenging clear-cut logging on Grassy Narrows' traditional lands. However, proceedings for the three- year old legal action will not be heard until late 2008. Meanwhile, clearcutting continues unabated. In a recent submission to the United Nations, Amnesty International argued that current logging on Grassy Narrows' traditional land violates the community's indigenous rights to self-determination and culture and fails to meet international standards of "free prior and informed consent" for development on traditional Indigenous lands.
For more information, go to FreeGrassy.org.
